madmike wrote:
I'm also a new T37 owner. We also have some survey results showing moisture in the deck. So rebedding stanchions, chainplates, and probably other stuff is in our future.
I'm wondering if that's the time to install aluminum backing plates for stanchions, winches, and mooring cleats. Is this a modification many people have done? Is it worth the effort?
I just finished repairing two stanchion bases and surrounding wet core after an unfortunate incident that compressed them. I laminated in simple 1/8" glass/epoxy backing plates made by compressing the laminate. Personally, I would not use aluminum because of corrosion with 316 fasteners. I would use something like G10 (get at McMaster or other vendors) because it's easy to shape and you can bond it if you want (just rough the surface properly). Chainplates is a whole other story. They are bolted to a structural bulkhead comprised of thick fiberglass skins laminated to a 2.5" marine ply core. Lots of discussion here on chainplate repairs. FWIW, my starboard chainplate bulkhead core was rotted from below. I picked out maybe the lower 2 inches of rotted wood which were actually below the chainplate bolts. Turned out there was no rot in way of the bolts.
Any through deck fittings that go through balsa core are going to be problematic. It turns out that the inboard stanchion bolts go through the outboard edge of the core so when those holes get compromised the deck will be wet. You can see how much of the deck I had to remove to get to dry wood. Deck fittings that are just through laminate should be easier to repair as long as there's no significant delamination.